The distance between Compton High and UCLA is 23 miles. For senior Datone Jones, it may as well have been worlds apart.

Jones grew up in a world where making eye contact with the wrong person can get you killed, a world where wearing the wrong color can put your life in danger. Jones is from Los Angeles and grew up in gang-ravaged Compton, a place where walking the streets at night was about as safe as walking through a minefield.

Jones came to UCLA in 2008. It was a different part of Los Angeles he learned to get used to, and the 6-foot-4, 275-pound defensive end has now grown to appreciate UCLA’s pristine campus. The differences are subtle – from neatly-manicured lawns to functioning sprinklers – but for Jones it accentuated a microcosm in which he had to learn to grow up fast.

Jones was raised by his mother Shondra Hall. He has an older brother and four sisters, all of whom were kept on a tight leash. That meant no parties, and for Jones it meant going nowhere without his brother, who is six years older.

“My mom’s a real tough lady,” Jones said. “She never let me go to parties, but I’m happy she stopped me because she knew. I commend her a lot for that because I could have been caught up in a real tough situation.”

Shondra understood the heavy influences surrounding Jones. Even more, she knew the dangers.

“The first time I ever saw someone lose their life I was 11,” Jones recalled.

It was the day after the Fourth of July. Jones was in his apartment playing games with his siblings. Fireworks went off in the distance, nothing new in a neighborhood that was known for setting off fireworks months before Independence Day. But this night was different.

“We heard everybody screaming,” Jones said.

It was his first of many reality checks.

“Right in front of my apartment building someone gets shot like 13 times,” Jones said. “Two people got shot but the other guy survived.

“When you see someone lose their life it’s not like how you see it in the movies,” Jones said. “I’ve seen all of that. I’m pretty numb to it now, but a kid should never have to see that.”

Most kids spent their early years learning simple skills like how to ride a bike. Jones spent his learning how to survive.

“We didn’t have that safety growing up,” Jones said. “I felt that made a lot of people in my area grow up fast. We had to learn by the streets pretty fast.”

But in the streets there’s no such thing as two-lane roads. You either make it out or stay behind.

“It’s been like that my whole life,” Jones said. “We have a group of friends, and they go one way and others go another way. I had friends who were killed or are in jail now.”

Jones had six Division I offers by the end of his junior year, UCLA among them. He committed not long after visiting the Westwood campus. It’s where he belonged. It was his ticket out of Compton, and his mother agreed.

“I didn’t commit,” Jones said. “We committed. This is where I had to go by myself, but ultimately we all committed together because when one of us makes it we all make it.”

Jones was signed, sealed and delivered, ready to make a name for himself along with cornerback Aaron Hester, who attended nearby Dominguez High. But two weeks before leaving for UCLA, Jones re-lived a childhood memory he has been unable to repress.

It was his senior year and he was heading home after the CIF State Track and Field Championships. He was walking home decked in Compton High gear.

“I remember coming home there were a bunch of guys banging close to my apartment building,” Jones recalled. “They were staring me down, and it got scary. The street got dark because the street lights weren’t working. I walked fast to get to my apartment.”

Just when Jones thought he was safe, chaos ensued.

“As soon as I close the front door to my house shots rang out,” Jones said. “I open my front door and somebody laid down in the front yard on the ground.”

Shondra frantically called her eldest son. But no answer.

“We see a guy in the front yard laid down but with the street lights you can’t see who is on the ground,” Jones said. “I’m scared but I run out to the front because I’m thinking that’s my older brother.

“I got to the front and I flipped the guy over. His body was shot up. It wasn’t my brother.”

Jones and others had rushed out to help, but with the car circling back they were left with no choice but to rush back into their homes.

“I guess to finish whatever they started because they saw people looking,” Jones said. “I called my brother and he wasn’t answering. It tripped me out because I thought it was my brother. I wanted to help the guy laid down, but we had to run.”

Jones knows he escaped a rough life, which is why he’s making the most of his opportunity at UCLA. He’s off to a roaring start. If he makes it to the NFL some day he wants to continue mentoring kids, something he has done every chance he gets. But he knows that walking the walk will have a greater impact.

“I’m a role model to my entire community in Compton,” Jones said. “I know that my name is still running through the city, and it motivates me to work harder and graduate, so when people pick up the newspaper they see I got my degree from UCLA.”